Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Trump's 'America First' Dog Whistle

When Donald Trump used used the phrase "America First" in his foreign policy speech today it was a loud and clear dog whistle to his white supremacist and neo-Nazi followers.

Yes, Dr. Seuss drew this.

"America First" is a phrase that reoccurs periodically in US history. For the last 80 years it has always been associated with isolationism, fascism, and racial purity. Before Trump, Pat Buchanan was the last to campaign with that slogan. Buchanan also wrote a book claiming that Britain was mistaken opposing Nazi Germany, should have backed Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, and that Winston Churchill was responsible for the Holocaust.

The most prominent America First movement was headed by famed flyer Charles Lindbergh before the US entered World War II.

Lindbergh received this medal in 1938.

Lindbergh loved the Nazis and Hitler returned the affection, awarding him The Order of the German Eagle and offered him a house in Berlin which Lindbergh refused after finding out it had previously been owned by Jews.

He returned to the United States before Germany invaded Poland.
he lobbied heavily for American neutrality and attacked President Roosevelt and "the Jews" for trying to help the British during the war's early years.

Lindbergh thought that the United State's "European blood" was being being diluted by "foreign races" like Asians, Mexicans, and Jews. Before becoming an isolationist he had urged the US to ally with Nazi Germany to rid the world of the Jewish and "semi-Asiatic" Russia.

All this is what Donald Trump's neo-Nazi listeners are hearing in the phrase "America First." They are hearing a call to purify American blood from an invasion of non-Aryans. A call for trade wars with Asiatic nations like Japan, South Korea, and China. And a call to wage a war of extermination on brown skinned Muslims.